AustLit

A children's adventure and pseudo-historical television program co-created by Australian script-writer Holly Lyons, then working in the UK, and British script-writer Andy Watts.

During the English Civil War, twelve-year-old Tom York discovers, when looking through his late mother's effects, that she was the daring highwayman Swiftnick. The idea of looking dashing in a mask and holding up coaches appeals to Tom's vanity, though he's not as competent a highwayman as his mother. Together with somewhat incompetent inventor (and best friend) Moses and the brave, tomboyish Deedee (really Lady Devereux), Tom tries to overturn the schemes of the wicked Sir John Snakelaw, Lady Devereux's guardian.

Rather than being a pure historical adventure, Help! I'm a Teenage Outlaw (as its title suggests) takes an anachronistic, ahistorical approach to the genre, lending the program an element of fantasy: Sir John's food taster, for example, is twenty years old but appears fifty after ingesting so many varied poisons, one episode involves a 'village karting race', and another centres on a Valentine's card.